In response to critic’s who say French art is elitist, the Louvre has embarked on the “Louvre-Lens” project and have built an extension of the museum in the poor mining city located in northern France. The project, which opens this week, is housed in a glass and aluminum structure and stands in stark contrast to the rest of the impoverished area.
While the Louvre is well intentioned, locals are wary. French President, Francois Hollande, visited the museum on December 4 but failed to venture outside the institution’s walls. While art is welcome, locals feel they are in greater need of expanded job opportunities and a more stable economy. Still, the Louvre hopes that they can help transform Lens similarly to how the Guggenheim Museum turned the burned-out, industrial city of Bilbao, Spain into a travel destination.
Lens was leveled as a result of World War I and II. After that, the city spent decades as mining area and endured many related tragedies. After the last mine closed in 1986, the city fell into poverty. Now one of the country’s poorest cities, Lens has an unemployment rate of 24 percent; the national average is 9 percent.
Designed by a Japanese firm, the museum boast two large exhibition spaces and features a diverse body of work including Cycladic sculptures, Egyptian statues, 11th century Italian mosaics, and Leonardo da Vinci’s restored masterpiece, The Virgin and Saint Anne.
